Norm

Splat, re the problem of taking the cage fronts off & replacing them again. I put a photo of cages I made on here a short time ago, where I use the little plastic turn things that are made to hold flyscreens in wooden window. They make it easy & don’t damage your timber. I don’t know how to direct you to the post, but see if you can find it.

Your right Nerwen, that could be the case, they might not be happy if there’s a dowel sticking through the middle of their nest. I don’t think the size of the nest would bother them, as I think they like big nests, I have one pair in an aviary that has taken over a Cockatiels nest & that nest is a full bee hive box, they have raised two batches already in it. I don’t have much experience with breeding with tame Budgies, 2Budgieowner says every time I take her out of the cage, could that be the problem, maybe they should be left till at least she has eggs, before regularly taking them out.

Thanks for that site Marlony, wonderful setup & beautiful photography, she certainly is into Rainbows. Some of Sabrina's Rainbows look like they are Grey wing & she has some Spangles too. I just realised something looking at that site, that if you want to breed Rainbows, it’s best to have Clearwing or Greywing in them. As then you can breed Rainbow to Rainbow & create a stud, like she has. Whereas if you use Spangle to Spangle the DF factor comes in & you get clear coloured birds.

Both your birds look nice, I'm glad they got on well together, they are both females.

It’s hard to tell from a photo like that but it doesn’t look as if she has a swollen vent. If when you put a pair to breed together & place the nest box in, the pair is ready to breed, mostly it will happen in 10 to 14 days. The pair will look interested in each other & the nest, the hen will start going in the nest & if all is right this will increase, until she is spending more time in the nest & less out. The cock will become very attentive & feed her most of the time, she comes out. Then just a few days before the egg is laid, the hens vent area under the tail will swell, so that you can see an area of skin. If all is well she will soon lay an egg, then another every second day until her clutch size is reach, normally 6, but sometime more or even less. I have had hens that the area swells, but even in months no egg arrives, I think in these cases something is wrong with the hen inside. Some pairs don’t seem interested in each other & this process doesn’t happen. Maybe they just don’t like each other or something else is wrong. You can try them with a different mate & it may work. But in rare cases something is wrong with the hen & she could possibly never breed. Usually if the cock is infertile or something wrong with him, the hen will still lay eggs, but they will never hatch.

I have had a bad run of late, I had that pair that the cock plucked the young ones when they were almost fully feathered, that I mentioned on another post, then he did it even worse on the second batch. It’s funny as he was such a good feeder & spent lots of time in the nest with the hen feeding them when they were young, then all of a sudden one day attacked them. Then another good pair had a good batch with no problems [6 young]…first off, then on their second batch another 6 young, when the first one left the nest the other day, it was attacked on the floor, I suspect the cock, but could be the hen as no proof. It lost feathers on its head & neck, so I removed it to the aviary. Also I had another pair that had two young on their first batch & now on the second [6 chicks] one fostered to another pair, it was one of the young killed, I mentioned above. When the fifth was almost feathered I noticed they were being plucked on their breast feathers, also they didn’t seem to have much food in their crops. So I thought it would be best to put them on the floor of the aviary, as that usually stops any feather plucking. Well it was a disaster, the horrible parents seemed like they were just interested in going down on eggs again & I haven’t seen either parent feeding them at all. But young are a lot tougher at that age than most think, as I read lots about people worrying about when to take them away. Its been three days & they are still going okay, the surprise is that about three other young birds that have just been out of the nest themselves, a little over a week, have been seen feeding the smaller ones. They are all eating seed also, it may not be ideal, but they are pretty tough & in a few days will be experts. I also had a hen that got sick while feeding two babies, so as soon as they got feathered I put them on the floor hoping the father would feed them & removed the hen. He was useless too, never did anything for them, I was worried about them, but after a few days they were doing good & are both flying around looking real healthy now, with no sign of their suffering. I have noticed that good fathers that have been feeding real well & feeding chicks at the nest entrance, often just seem to stop when they leave the nest. I think even in the wild it’s probably a difficult time for chicks & they seem mostly to be able to get over it with little trouble.

Great Pictures Elly, in that last one he certainly has an intelligent look about him.

I have some Spangles that look pretty much like Rainbows, but the true Rainbow is a Clear wing.

I have this pair of YF2 Opalines, the male is an Opaline Blue, the hen Opaline Grey, they have had mostly Opaline young, some YF but some white faced Blues, but both must be split for Recessive pied, as I have had quite a few pied, then in their last batch I have a YF2 Blue Normal wing pattern. They are in an aviary, but there are no other Budgies with them. I also have a pair of Opaline Cinnamon Greens, that in their last batch of 7 have some that look like Cinnamon Normals, but the parents feather plucked them a little on their back where the triangle of colours is, so I can’t be sure until it grows back, but some of the wing patterns look more normal than Opaline.

Just wanted to add my confirmation, that if your thinking of doing colony breeding with your Budgies my advice is DON”T. I had to get it confirmed for myself, I thought that if I just used a few pairs, that it would work okay. Well it didn’t work; I put up some batches of three pairs in aviaries. I put in more nests than pairs, one aviary so far hasn’t had any trouble, but it’s like playing Russian roulette, the other aviary had three pairs in it, then two hens started fighting, so I removed one pair, leaving just two pairs, both had young at almost the same age, almost feathered up. Well yesterday when I went to the cage, I notice the hens had been fighting, as one had a little injury on her head, when I looked in her nest, I made a terrible discovery, her two younguns, had their head almost chewed off, not a nice sight. Needless to say I’m giving up my project to try colony breeding & now all my breeding will be in cabinets or separate cages at least.

I have some pairs of Opaline to Opaline that have produced normal wing patterned birds, I thought it was a bit strange, but then thought maybe you can always get some throw back to the normal pattern.

Pine or oregan wont last long in the weather & both these soft woods are termite “candy” hard wood or metal are the way to go as recommended by others.

Yes very interesting, seems like lots of maybe Melanistic Spangle influence in birds in that Brisbane area, lucky. I see what looks like one completely white feather in the wing, is that what you mean? This bird is already into its adult moult, but no sign of the characteristic wing marking of Microsoft Corporation ®. I had a Sky Blue that had French moult & after it grew back its tail it is white like the Microsoft Corporation ®, but I’m pretty sure it’s from stress nothing else.

Nothing else you could have done AINS, that’s natures way, not all survive, it’s wisdom beyond ours…good luck with the rest.

One unnamed Budgie. He just suddenly got real bad & collapsed, I have never had a Budgie that was sick like him, he didn’t show any outward symptoms, like the runs etc I think he had lung damage. I think he was quite a nice looking bird [in the show sense] & that he had been kept to such an age, seems like he was valued. Just sad I couldn’t bring him back at least long enough to get some nice young from him. But we can’t win them all.

Yeah good one Kaz…look nice birds I like the two last ones the Danish& Dominant Pieds. Congratulations.

Probably is a sign, usually they don’t get too protective before they have eggs, but depends on the birds some are pretty savage others quite calm.

As long as your birds look healthy, it’s not a problem, some people take three or four batches from a pair, but wisdom is that two is best, then give them a rest.

He’s had a bad relapse today, I don’t hold too much hope for him, but he was like that when I got him, but with age against him, I’m not that hopeful.

I totally agree with Rainbow, you can't beat, fed by mother...it may even give them tummy troubles. Just do what Rainbow & others have said, handle them lots, even if you get a young bird just out of the nest that hasn't been handle much at all, they soon become very tame, so if you handle them every day when you have the time, I'm sure they will be as tame as you could get.

Fallows can carry any other Recessive gene the same as any other Budgie it’s only that Fallow is their visual gene & being a hen it can’t carry any sex linked trait unless it’s shown. Of course they can’t carry a Dominant trait. I think they can carry the dark factors too. Like Elly said, that young YF is a Cobalt whereas Dad is a Sky Blue, but the Green infusion could come in later, as the bird gets it’s adult plumage. Your hen could be a Cobalt Fallow, as the colour is diluted by the Fallow gene.

Thanks for those links Kaz, that was very interesting. I was thinking of starting up a post lately about the spots on British Show budgies…about how they seem to have not worried that much about breeding only with the six spots on their mask, I knew that they pluck some feathers out, before showing, but I was thinking that if that was so, some birds wouldn’t have any mask left…(Laughing out loud)…well looking at some of those pictures it looks like that is true & it doesn’t seem to matter. Some look like they only have the feathers with the desired spots left. Apart from that, nice birds, I wouldn’t mind some of them. Also it helped in another way, one guy near here’s name was given to me to contact & I couldn’t find him in the phone book, but I see he was showing over there & got the correct spelling of his name & found him in the book so helped in lots of ways thanks.

Nice cages Aly, & like Kaz’s said nice scales…it’s good how you guys weight your chicks & spend so much time at these things, If I started weighing mine I wouldn’t have enough time to feed myself let alone the birds…Yes birds are pretty knowing & wont let you get away with a quite day will they. My Cockatiels are worse than the Budgies, if their food is getting low, as soon as they see me walk out of the house their on the wire yelling out to me…don’t forget us!!!

Personally I don’t believe in keeping something alive that has something so obviously wrong with it, if hand feeding would keep it alive, which I doubt, there’s the chance that later on, someone may use it for breeding, which would cause even more problems. I feel the best thing, if you don’t feel like “putting it out of its misery” is just to return it to, the normal situation with its parents & just let nature take it’s coarse. Like Kaz said, if someone would suggest sending it to "Rainbow bridge" haven’t heard that expression before…. there would be an uproar…to me what is the kindest position, to let something suffer, prolonged agony or bring on the inevitable. Don’t feel guilty whatever your decision is.

My thoughts entirely, a very, very dangerous practice Kaz…. "What’s she looking for ?"…Bombs away!!! "What me...no it must have been someone else, I'm innocent".